Trump Brought Attention But Little Money To Counter Opioid Crisis

President and First Lady Trump speak at the White House as people affected by the opioid crisis look on.

Credit White House

Donald Trump told supporters on the campaign trail his plan to combat the opioid crisis. It included stopping the flow of drugs into the country, increase the penalties for drug trafficking, and make treatment more accessible.

“We will give people struggling with addiction access to the help they need,” then-candidate Trump said.

In the first year of his presidency, that plan has developed partially due to the influence of people working on solutions to the epidemic in the Ohio Valley region. But as the one-year mark for the Trump administration approaches, public health officials in the region offer a mixed view of the president’s action.

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Lisa Roberts, a public health nurse with the Portsmouth City Health Department, said she believes that important steps were taken, but more could have been done.

President Trump emphasized “law and order” when discussing the opioid crisis during his first year.

His preferred plan to build a wall to keep drugs from coming over the border remains in limbo.

But other agencies under his direction put an emphasis on combating drug trafficking activity in Appalachia.

The Drug Enforcement Administration announced last year the deployment of a mobile tactical diversion squad to West Virginia to provide support in a region hit hard by the opioid epidemic.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Credit CSpan

The DEA also announced a new Louisville Field Division that will employ 90 special agents and 130 task force officers that will work in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

“These areas covered face similar drug threats, enabling this division to better focus on the particular threats of that region,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.

The new division was just part of Sessions’ strategy to improve the Justice Department’s approach to the opioid crisis.

He announced $12 million in grants to be awarded to law enforcement agencies tackling drug trafficking. And each U.S. attorney will appoint an opioid coordinator to handle related cases and develop a strategy to combat the opioid epidemic.

High-Level Visits

Sessions was one of several members of the Trump administration to visit the Ohio Valley to hear from those working to combat opioid addiction in the region.

Presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s appointee to coordinate the administration’s opioid response, visited West Virginia multiple times to learn about the epidemic, most notably with former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on a listening tour and on a separate visit with First Lady Melania Trump.

“I learned that to help babies succeed we must help their parents succeed,” she said after her visit to the infant treatment center. “By placing priority on the whole family, Lily’s Place is giving infants the best opportunity.”

Emergency Declaration

What the administration learned during these visits to the Ohio Valley partially influenced what could be considered President Trump’s marquee action on opioids in his first year.

The presidential commission had urged Trump to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency in order to free up resources and allow for more swift action.

The plan called for programs targeted at improving treatment in rural areas. This included increased treatment through telemedicine, the development of a nationwide education program, and the streamlining of funds for treatment.

But there was no assurance of new funding to support these new programs

“That’s the piece that I think is a critical piece here,” Dr. Gupta said. “A public health emergency simply isn’t a declaration. But it’s much more than that.”

The Trump administration looked instead to Congress for funding.

And while there is talk of adding some money in the end-of-year spending bill, there is no assurance as yet.

Meanwhile, many of the programs highlighted in the emergency declaration have not been put into action.

Regional lawmakers including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) have urged Trump to extend the 90-day health emergency that is set to expire next week.

Lisa Roberts said that can serve as snapshot of the Trump approach to the opioid epidemic in his first year: promising steps but little action.

“We still have millions of people that are addicted. These are people that are currently dying that we need to stabilize.”

President Donald Trump outlined on Thursday his long-awaited plan to address the opioid crisis as a national public health emergency. Part of that plan was based on experiences in the Ohio Valley region.

In an address at the White House Thursday both President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump mentioned efforts in the Ohio Valley region to help infants affected by the crisis.

Trump said that a hospital nursery in West Virginia treats one in every five babies for symptoms of addiction.

The Trump administration’s top health official backed away from a presidential commission’s proposal to declare a national public health emergency to address the opioid crisis. An emergency declaration could have big implications for the Ohio Valley, a region with some of the country’s highest addiction and overdose rates.

The top recommendation from President Trump’s commission on the opioid crisis was for the president to declare the opioid crisis a national public health emergency.

Imagine living and working somewhere designed to fit a couple hundred people. Now picture that same space crammed with twice that number. Madison County, Kentucky, Jailer Doug Thomas doesn’t have to imagine it. He lives it.

“I’m doing all that I can with what I have to work with, which is not a lot,” he said. “Because we’re a 184 bed facility with almost 400 people.”

According to the Madison County jail task force, roughly 80 percent of the people incarcerated there are jailed on charges that somehow relate to addiction. County Judge Executive Reagan Taylor wants to try a different approach.